Promised
by Faye Dartmouth
Summary: Winchesters made promises. Usually promises they couldn't keep. Post ABHL2.


Title: Promised

Summary: Winchesters made promises. Usually promises they couldn't keep. Post ABHL2.

A/N: I'm really not so sure I actually like this fic a lot or that it says anything new or noteworthy. But this is what the aftermath of AHBL2 inspired me to write, so I figured since Gem and sendintheclowns took the time to read it over, I'd go ahead and post it for better or for worse.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

-o-

Winchesters made promises. Usually promises they couldn't keep.

Not that they didn't try. Not that they didn't mean them when they said them.

Dean promised to always look after his brother. He promised to protect him, to take care of him, to keep him safe. He promised to save him, to save him from himself, from hell, from everything bad that might come.

Dean knew that he would always try, on all those fronts, but they weren't promises that he could ever really guarantee, no more than their father's promises to take care of them, to avenge Mary. No more than their mother's promises that angels were watching over them and that everything would be alright.

When Sam was very young, he had promised to never leave, to always be with Dean, to be just like Dean.

Then when Sam was a teenager, their dad promised to never let Sam come back.

Sam, not to be outdone, promised never to come back.

It was a string of broken promises, all with good intentions, but all broken anyway. Good intentions or bad intentions, Dean wasn't sure it mattered. Not anymore. Because broken promises cut deep either way.

But Dean had never broken a promise like this one.

He knew that now, as he watched Sam sleep. He knew his failure as it settled in his bones and body. It made him weary.

He could still hear Sam in his head, telling about a new kind of devil's trap and some kind of exorcisms that might help them push the demon's hand. It was the latest theory in a long line of theories, but none of them had gotten anywhere yet.

Two months, five days in, and Sam was no closer to finding a way to undo Dean's deal.

Dean sighed. Leaning back against the headboard of his bed. Sam was leaned over on the table, his head resting on his hands, the laptop still open, his page still on the screen. He was asleep, but it wasn't a restful sleep. Research was all Sam did anymore, day and night, whether they were on a hunt or in between. Dean would wake up in the middle of the night and find Sam bathed in the glow of the computer screen. He worked through breakfast, lunch, and dinner, only eating when Dean reminded him.

Dean always reminded him. Always tried to get him to put the laptop away. Once he even threw it out, tried to convince Sam he'd lost it, but Sam had stolen another one, a faster one, without even skipping a beat.

Sam was snoring now, a thin string of drool escaping his parted lips. Dean wanted to wake him, to put him to bed, but he knew as soon as Sam was awake at all, he'd be back to the research, and Dean couldn't risk that.

His brother was obsessed. His brother was desperate. And Dean realized just how badly he'd broken his promise.

"I'm sorry, Sam," he whispered softly. "You were supposed to let it go, little brother. You were supposed to _live _a little. That's what second chances are for."

Sam mumbled, as if he'd heard his brother, and shifted, turning his face more into his hands, but didn't wake.

Dean closed his eyes. Sam didn't see this as a second chance at life. He saw it as a second chance to save his brother. A second chance to be the perfect hunter, the perfect son, the one he'd never been able to be in his first chance at life.

The demon had said maybe Sam wasn't all Sam, and for awhile, Dean had been suspcious.

His brother was more violent now, less merciful. And Dean knew some of that had to do with what he'd been through--being killed was fairly traumatic, after all.

But more of it had to do with Dean. Had to do with the fact that Dean had pushed his brother into a corner and left him no way out. Sam just wasn't able to accept it--yet.

Dean opened his eyes and looked at his brother again. In the exhausted, slack features, Dean saw the brother he knew and loved well. An open, honest kid just looking for love and acceptance and understanding. It was all still there, but what Sam was willing to give for it was different. Before Stanford, Sam had only gone so far for his family. After Stanford, it was something different.

Now--

Now Sam had nothing held back; he gave it all completely and totally to keep his brother with him.

Because Sam couldn't live without him.

Sam couldn't be alone.

Not now. Not at the end of everything. Not after losing everyone. Sam had died, and all the kid could think about was keeping Dean from dying too.

Dean laughed. It shouldn't have surprised him. It was the same desperation that had driven Dean to make a deal with a demon, the same selfish fear of being alone, of facing life without the one person who mattered.

The worst fate imaginable.

The fate he'd condemned his brother to the moment he kissed the demon on the crossroads.

For all the times he'd called Sam a selfish bastard, he knew none of it held a candle to him.

Because if Sam couldn't save him, if Sam failed--then Sam would be destroyed.

He brought Sam back to life, brought him back from the dead, only to kill him slowly.

Sam was self destructing. At this rate, he wouldn't make it a full year.

At this rate, Dean wasn't sure he wanted him to, not like this. Not emaciated and empty.

But Sam was alive. Sam was here with him. Sam was _his_ for as long as that could last. Dean couldn't quite regret that, not yet.

The smell of death was still too real, the gray cast of Sam's skin was still too fresh.

When he'd sold his soul to the crossroad demon, he hadn't done it to give Sam a second chance. He'd done it to give himself a second chance. To give _them_ a second chance.

Two months, five days had passed. Two months and five days where they hadn't found a way out. Two months and five days without either of them really living.

That left nine months, twenty-five days to find some way out of it. This wasn't hell or heaven or even earth, just purgatory, and Dean knew that when the crossroad demon came to collect, she'd been getting two souls instead of one.

Dean would do anything to keep that from happening.

So would Sam.

Dean almost smiled, tears stinging in his eyes.

This time they'd fight for each other. This time they'd do it together. This time, they had no choice. That was a promise he'd keep, they'd both keep, or die trying.


End file.
